The Kansas State Board of Education voted yesterday to approve science education
standards that treat evolution with skepticism. Scientists say that the standards
open the door for nonscientific beliefs such as intelligent design (ID), the
idea that evolution is guided by an intelligent being, to enter science classrooms
across the state.

The final vote was six to four in favor of the standards, which have undergone
multiple reviews and revisions over the years. "Members of the school board
announced that they were going to do this even before they were elected to office,"
says Lee Allison of the Kansas Geological Survey. "They're doing exactly
what they said they were going to do."

In 1999, board members voted to remove evolution from the state standards,
but when conservative board members were voted out in 2001, the new board chose
to reinstate the teaching of evolution. Last June, a subcommittee approved revised
standards that included changes proposed by advocates of ID.

The new standards require students to learn evolution, but also allow teachers
to question the Darwinian view that life has a common origin, and they encourage
teachers to discuss alternatives. Also, the standards adopted a new definition
of science, to include explanations that go beyond the natural world.

Those changes, Allison says, are part of a "very sophisticated political
strategy" that open the door to ID. The new standards do not require that
ID be presented to students; instead, they "demonize evolution, criticize
it, weaken it, set it up so that alternative theories can be presented without
saying what those are," Allison says.

Board member Steve Abrams said that the science standards "are not about
faith. It shouldn't be about faith," according to the Wichita Eagle.
Rather, he said in an Oct. 9 Associated Press report that the new standards
are about teaching "good science."

Another board member Janet Waugh, who voted against the changes, said that
she believes in the biblical version of creation, "but I don't believe
my belief should be taught in a science class," according to the Wichita
Eagle.

Exactly how the new standards will affect science education remains to be seen.
One teacher at Blue Valley West High School in Overland Park, Kan., says that
he does not plan to change his teaching of evolution, according to a Nov.
7 Associated Press report. But the issue of concern, Allison says, is not
so much the significance of whether or not schools teach ID, but that the standards
authorize teachers to bring their personal belief system into the science classroom.

The standards are still undergoing rewording, however, after the National Academy
of Sciences and the National Science Teachers Association revoked copyright
privileges on materials originally included in Kansas' standards. The move to
deny use of materials was in protest of the change, which the two groups say
"inappropriately singles out evolution as a controversial theory despite
the strength of the scientific evidence supporting evolution as an explanation
for the diversity of life on Earth and its acceptance by an overwhelming majority
of scientists," according to a joint statement released by the groups on
Oct. 27. Lawyers will carefully review the standards approved by the board to
ensure that language from the two groups' material is not used, according to
an Oct. 27 Associated Press story.

More revisions are possible when the standards become available for review
in future years. And with four conservative board members up for reelection
next year, many scientists say that they are hopeful for a changing of the guard,
similar to what happened in 1999 and 2001, returning the focus to evolution.
According to Allison, however, the damage is done. "This is not only significant
for Kansas; this is significant for the entire nation," Allison says. "Kansas
is the testing ground for the first formal assault by the intelligent design
movement on the science education system of the nation."

Meanwhile, the jury is still out as to whether or not students at schools in
Dover, Pa., will be required to learn about ID alongside evolution. A judge's
decision is pending in a court case that will determine the legality of including
ID in Dover schools' curriculum. In Tuesday's election, voters booted out all
eight school board members who spearheaded the inclusion of ID in the curriculum,
replacing them with candidates who say ID does not belong in the classroom,
the Associated Press reported Nov. 9. A final ruling on the
Dover case is expected by the end of the year.